Cold War (1 Viewer)

jasonmatthew

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Hi. How did you find the Cold War questions and which one did you choose. I chose the second one. The questions were:

(a) Evaluate the view that the Korean War was the most signficant crisis affecting supoerpower relations in the period 1948-1962
OR

(b) Assess the imact of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan on the developement of the Cold War in the Period 1979-1991.

Thanks


I did the second one. I thought it was a good question. First and Foremost i said it started the second cold war and gor trid of Salt 2 I linked it to the imact on Reagan, his doctrine, increase in armamanents, hard line stance, tougher foreign policy, evil empire speech, giving money to other countries etc. Then i also related it to the social and economic omplicaitions of the war, how it had a failing state on the economy of Russia which was dying under its stalinist system. Then i went on and talked about context, policitcal instability of Andropev anc Chernako and how this lead to Gorbachev who instituted policies (pere and glasnost) that restructured and opened the economy, how he changed his foreign policy and disabandoned Afghanistan. This lead to the INF and then the breakdown and ending of the cold war etc
 
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Asheroth

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I chose the first one, couldn't remember enough about the later Cold War to do an essay on it. I argued that the Korean War was not as significant as either the Berlin Blockade or the Cuban Missile Crisis, since the former was instrumental in cementing Cold War divisions in Europe, and the Cuban Missile Crisis illustrated to both superpowers the need for increased co-operation in a nuclear age. Korea's role in extending the Cold War to Asia and establishing 'proxy war' as the convention in Cold War military conflicts was important, but not as significant as the other crises. Wrote nine pages, think I did alright :D
 
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ouch....I would have panicked If I had had to do those questions. These Cold War questions are always so random and specific.

Wasn't the Cuban Missile Crisis 1963? (it's funny how much I've forgotten from the HSC)
 

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Asheroth said:
I chose the first one, couldn't remember enough about the later Cold War to do an essay on it. I argued that the Korean War was not as significant as either the Berlin Blockade or the Cuban Missile Crisis, since the former was instrumental in cementing Cold War divisions in Europe, and the Cuban Missile Crisis illustrated to both superpowers the need for increased co-operation in a nuclear age. Korea's role in extending the Cold War to Asia and establishing 'proxy war' as the convention in Cold War military conflicts was important, but not as significant as the other crises. Wrote nine pages, think I did alright :D
yeah i did about the same thing. i said something kinda weird about Stalin in there as well, i cant remember exactly... something about his personality cult, i don't know. i just remember it had to do with the opening of a new cold war sphere in asia...meh.

i dont know if i answered it terribly well. i was running out of time so i had to condense my discussion of cuba to like a page when i had a whole booklet i wanted to write.

and i had a mindblank and couldnt remember when the korean war ended :eek: i remembered with just enough time to scribble it in before pens down.
 

Mazxoxo

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Asheroth said:
I chose the first one, couldn't remember enough about the later Cold War to do an essay on it. I argued that the Korean War was not as significant as either the Berlin Blockade or the Cuban Missile Crisis, since the former was instrumental in cementing Cold War divisions in Europe, and the Cuban Missile Crisis illustrated to both superpowers the need for increased co-operation in a nuclear age. Korea's role in extending the Cold War to Asia and establishing 'proxy war' as the convention in Cold War military conflicts was important, but not as significant as the other crises. Wrote nine pages, think I did alright :D
Funnily enough that's exactly how I did it. I am very relieved it's over:)
 

pennypacker

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I did the first one on Korea, and it seems I took the same line of argument as others, saying that while Korea was important in establishing containment in Asia, The berlin blockade and Cuban missile crisis were more crucial in terms of affecting superpower relations.

I was surprised at both the questions, actually, as each one specified an event rather than a 'phase' of the cold war (eg. detente, containment, etc). They've never specified an event like that in both questions before, i don't think, and since they asked a question on crises last year, i thought they'd refrain from asking about crises again. I was really hoping for detente, coz i did most of my prep on that area.

But i'm just glad its over, that's the main thing.
 
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polgs

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we never studied the korean war or agafanastan in class...
 

Redkoala

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Same Polgs. I was kinda stuffed for both. Surprised at how specific they were as well... usually they have a specific one and a more general one...Luckily all my other sections were easy, hopefully I'll make up the marks there...
 

Mel_b

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I did Korea. I looked at the three significant things about it (globalisation of cold war, test of whether containment would be followed through with an armed intervention and the development of the psychological war,) and argued that there were no 'most' significant events in that period in terms of relationship changes, but that a number of different events were examples of the way policies were changing - essentially that crises didn't change relationships but were the result of the way the relationships changed.
 

ulleh

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Reading this makes me think i didint do so well.... oh well!
 
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pennypacker said:
I did the first one on Korea, and it seems I took the same line of argument as others, saying that while Korea was important in establishing containment in Asia, The berlin blockade and Cuban missile crisis were more crucial in terms of affecting superpower relations.

I was surprised at both the questions, actually, as each one specified an event rather than a 'phase' of the cold war (eg. detente, containment, etc). They've never specified an event like that in both questions before, i don't think, and since they asked a question on crises last year, i thought they'd refrain from asking about crises again. I was really hoping for detente, coz i did most of my prep on that area.

But i'm just glad its over, that's the main thing.

My thoughts exactly
 

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when we were in the page check bit everyone read the cold war question and similtaneously cracked up, it was so bad. it was a really awful question i thought, so specific... really feel sorry for those in the state who never studied the specifics of korea or afghanistan... i was lucky, i was one of three who chose to do a viva voce on korea over the other options. but yeah, i reckon it was pretty tough, bit nasty. god im glad its over now though, such a weight of my shoulders!
 

sx4daboiz

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I chose Korea because i pretty much knew nothing about Cold War except the origins and the rule of Stalin, and because I didn't really know about the other crises I said Korea was significant... unlike everyone else here :S errr i think im screwed...
I said it was most significant because it was the first major war between the powers and pretty much fucked their relations and the UN army almost risked war with China... is that ok????
 

Asheroth

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We didn't cover Korea or the Berlin Blockade significantly in class, but they're both in the syllabus so I learnt them myself. A good thing as it turns out :D
 

201055

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I did the second question, piece of cake i reckon, just mentioned Soviet invasion were among a combination of factors and went on from there. I suppose even if your strengths weren't in the Korean War or Afghan War, you could still make up a lot of marks discussing the other issues which contributed.
 

izzy88

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i first freaked when i saw the cold war questions...they seemed quite specific by mentioning specific crises...however when i read it through again (i did the second one on afghanistan) i realised it wasnt bad as it actually wanted u to talk about till the end of the cold war....which i had done practises on

made some links about how afghanistan caused the US to increase arms budget, USSR economy to suffer, in turn forced Gorbachev to introduce reforms to help the economy and these reforms undermined the communist system, a la end of cold war....fun!
 

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i did the first one. mentioned the berlin blockade, china becoming communist, korea (duh) and the berlin wall. couldnt remember enough about cuba to use it and wasnt even sure if it fit the time frame. there was no way i'd do the other question, cos i was away when we did that and i never really got around to looking at it
 

mini_monica

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i did the first quesiton too! it was quite a good one to answer, i mentioned china, korea haha, berlin blockade and the wall in 1961, and the cuban missile crisis. i said the korean war was not as significant as berlin or cuba blah blah blah.

anyway i was SUPER relieved when i read that question, because i was really hoping for either korea/berlin/cuba - haha i got a chance to talk about them all! =)

can you believe it? it's over!
 

black_tongue

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Froy said:
...really feel sorry for those in the state who never studied the specifics of korea or afghanistan... i was lucky, i was one of three who chose to do a viva voce on korea over the other options.
I didn't think these were OPTIONS, i thought they were compulsory, that everyone had to study them? Sounds like perhaps your teacher didn't know what to teach you? In that case, i feel sorry for you.
 

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